Clough Manhood Series Lesson 7

Abraham: Confidence – Genesis 12-22

Tonight we are studying the 7^th lesson on the doctrine of the Christian man. As we usually do we like to review some of the principles that we’ve learned so far. The basic male picture that gather from Scripture is of man as a dominion man; man was made to subdue the earth. He is made as a family leader over a sort of mina-society, that is, his family. That the male experiences his chief frustration in the area of production of wealth and his job. We studied some of the historical illustrations of the male’s nature. We’ve seen Cain and Cain has taught us why the male often has many of his psychological problems. God, in his counseling meeting with Cain said “if you do well” you will be encouraged, and if you disobey, then beware, “sin crouches at the door,” and you’ll be [can’t understand words]. We also saw how Cain, although he could rebel against God and reorient his life against God, could not obliterate his imagehood, and so though Cain went on negative volition and rebelled, in his rebellion he produced; he produced the first city the first society. Urban culture was begun by social evil. The first urbanite was Cain, the autonomous male. And that’s always been a feature of urban culture since; autonomy. Cities adore autonomy.

Then we saw Lamech and we showed how Lamech represents the degeneracy of the male character and when the male degenerates he has two tendencies, one toward physical violence and the other toward domineering sex. This is illustrated in Genesis 4. Last week we studied Noah as a historical illustration of the stubbornly righteous male, who when society degenerates all around him he has one last bastion in which he can stand and rule, and that last bastion is his own home. Noah ruled his own home so effectively that all members of his household went aboard the ark and degeneracy was so intense outside the family that no one outside the family boarded the ark. The man, beginning then, sort of radiating out from himself and from his family. In other words, Noah was a revolutionary man; he rebelled in a very radical way against the whole temper of his time.

We also studied the problem of divine guidance. We summarized divine guidance under three headings or three perspectives. You could say you could look at divine guidance from the standpoint of norms about features in the creation, items for consideration. And when you look and ask yourself, what principles do I use in finding God’s will when I’m looking at the norms and standards of creation, we have Genesis 1:28-30; Matthew 28:18-20. We have Genesis 2:19 that says there’s a domain; there’s the Word of God out here to give norms and standards in a great perimeter and then at the center of the perimeter, sort of like a donut in the middle there is a blank space. And in that space I can pray and I can pray and I can pray and I never get any divine guidance and the reason is explained in Genesis 2:19, because God says I want you to create, now you have the biblical principles and the perimeter, now this is in a zone of pure creativity; you go to it and see what you can build out of it.

Then we could look at divine guidance from the standpoint of our personal history, looking at the continuity principle; 1 Corinthians 7:19-20, and in that verse, that principle of divine guidance goes somewhat like this, that we are to stay in the calling wherein we were called but we’re to keep God’s commandments, and if we keep God’s commandments starting out in the calling wherein we are called, you can phrase it this way, we obey our way into a change of course, because by keeping God’s commandments we’ll automatically start tracking in a different direction if we’re consistent. So 1 Corinthians 7:19-20 approaches divine guidance from the standpoint of personal history.

Then finally we said you could look on divine guidance from the standpoint of relationship to God, 1 Corinthians 7:35, doing that which brings you closer to the Lord. That’s another way of an option to choose. These are three general principles of divine guidance that can be used in this dome of creativity where there’s no other guidance in the Word; the Word is just not giving us any more guidance, and for very good reasons.

Today we begin by turning to Deuteronomy 4 to study a principle in the background of Abraham. The next couple of times we’ll be looking at Abraham, a very revolutionary man of history. We want to study him, study to see why he did what he did and what were some of his principles that he used. We want to understand his place in history first; what sort of situation did Abraham face. Abraham was a lot like Noah, he faced a degenerate kingdom of man. Abraham was called upon to be a spiritual pioneer, like Noah. Like Noah, Abraham was called upon to march to a different tune than everyone else; he was called upon to look not to his neighbor but to his conscience. He was to be an independent man, independent in the good sense; that is, independent before God, independent of automatic social connections. Abraham had to be willing to make breaks, so did Noah.

And in Deuteronomy 4:19 we have the break that Abraham was asked to make, God says later on, this passage occurs later in history, but the principle is there. God is saying something that separates Abraham’s culture from the Gentiles. He says, this is talking to the Jewish people here, “Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and all the host of heaven, that you should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God has divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. [20] But the LORD God has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, [even out of Egypt], to be unto Him a people of inheritance,” so there’s a difference. God leads the Gentiles in their degeneracy and calls out from the stream of history a few, “a few good men” to paraphrase a well-known slogan, a few good men to start a divine viewpoint counter culture. That’s the purpose of Abraham, the spiritual pioneer.

As I said, we’re going to have to spend some time on Abraham, we’re going to have to look at him from different directions, but tonight we’re going to begin by looking at the New Testament view of Abraham. Turn to Romans 4:17. We’ve studied most of these passages before but in studying them this time we have a new wrinkle we want to add. We want to look at these passages from the standpoint only of the male; what are peculiar things that the male is involved in in these passages. And we’ll look for hints to see how well these passages fit with the man’s role as given in the Old Testament. And so in Romans 4:17 Paul’s talking about faith, justification by faith, and he talks about, in verse 17 quoting the Old Testament, Genesis 17:5, “As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations),” Abraham becomes a pioneer.

Notice again, the man is a fountainhead of society and civilization. He’s always looked upon like this, this is astounding; I don’t know why I didn’t appreciate this more but when I started this manhood course it just hit, page after page; the men are always looked at from the standpoint of their seed, of their children. Inevitably, almost every single time God is thankful to the men He’s thankful to them and his children, and the family that man produces and leads into history. And here’s a good example of it, you may be “a father of many nations,” that’s why Abraham is blessed in God’s sight. “… before whom,” before Him, before God, before the covenant God, “before God he believed,” there’s the picture of Abraham’s key characteristic in his soul.

We’ll see later Abraham was imperfect in many, many ways. Abraham sinned, violated the will of God and so on. But God was interested in teaching Abraham one basic lesson. Remember, when you read your Bible, read it from the standpoint of sequence in history. God is going to teach a certain set of truths and He does so gradually. And in Abraham’s time it was not the time of the Law. God was not interested in that era of teaching all the fine dos and don’ts. That wasn’t the point; the point was that at that stage in history man had already known the doctrine of God and creation, the doctrine of sin, had already experienced the flood judgment, and now the new thing that had to be impressed upon men is the modus operandi of the believer’s life from this point forward in mortal history, which is the faith technique.

So Abraham is a man of faith and that’s why you see the word pistis and its various roots occurring in this passage. “Believe” in verse 17 emphasizes Abraham’s character. So here is the male in his grace orientation as a faith technique expert, “who quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not, as though they were.” Now that little added phrase describing God in verse 17 describes God through Abraham’s eyes. Abraham had to look to God and therefore see something in God’s character that he could trust and the key thing was not necessarily the law-giving God of Moses. What Abraham saw was the God who is sovereign in history, who calls things that are not. In other words, God says, and suddenly something appears in history, almost miraculously, almost overnight; sometimes not quick but it will certainly be there.

And so the theme of Abraham’s life is that he looked to God, who calls those things which do not exist as though they did exist; that’s the point. You see, when God speaks to us in history, and this is really a picture of the whole faith technique, God is outside of history. We are inside the finite creation; from inside the finite creation we do not have access to omniscience and there’s nothing real outside that; of course God’s character is, but as far as creaturehood, there’s nothing real until it happens in history. Now look, suppose God has an idea, or a promise. That idea and a promise is in the mind of God and God can speak that idea and that promise, such as, Abraham, I’ll make a mighty nation of you, that’s still only an idea in the mind of God. It’s been transmitted by a word down into history so Abraham can hear that word, and he can respond, either believing or unbelieving, but still the idea is not real and the idea isn’t going to be real until finally it comes to pass in history.

The man, Abraham, was so oriented that an idea in the mind of God was as real as reality was. And that’s the point this passage is making; “who calls things,” that means God talks about things that are in His mind, but yet are not real in history. The New Jerusalem is not a real thing with us today; your resurrection body is not a real thing today, but nevertheless, if you are a believer you should be oriented to that, and you should understand that that’s coming your way. And you should respond to life in a certain way because of it, but it’s not real; it only becomes real later on, but we act on it.

And so in Romans 4:18 it goes on to describe further Abraham, “Who against hope,” notice not “with hope” but “against hope believed in hope,” there are two hopes there, obviously, it’s being used two different ways. One hope is the human viewpoint hope; that’s the hope of the autonomous chain, the hope that is spewed on somebody because look, this is the way to advance in your career; those are the false hopes, the hopes and the gimmicks. But against that kind of hope, Abraham “believed in hope,” the divine viewpoint kind; he was oriented to God and not his own autonomy, “that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken.”

And now in Romans 4:19-21 what is the particular in Abraham’s life, the big, big battle that went on for some 25 years in his life; over and over and over Abraham was hit by this particular trial. It goes back to his name. We’ve said earlier, Abram and Abraham; it’s not the addition of h-a in the name, making it longer that was the big issue. The point is, Abram, “Ab” is the word father, “ram” is mighty, the mighty father. That’s what Abraham’s original name meant. But when God promised children to him his name shifted to Abraham. Now this “ham” is a word for people, father of a great people. His name was changed and so everywhere he went he was called father of the nations, or father of a great people. But he had no people, and that’s the point. The idea was in God’s mind but it wasn’t real in history and that’s why, now in verse 19-20 it’s discussing the whole problem of why this couple had no children, and yet he could be called “father of many nations.”

[19] “And being not weak in faith,” now the King James is exactly opposite; now apparently in King James grammar this was all right, it’s not a mistake, it’s just that our grammar has shifted on the English side of the translation, but it’s wrong, it shouldn’t be this way, “And being not weak in faith, he considered his own body now dead,” he did consider it, the King James, if you read it, it sounds like he didn’t consider his body. Well, if that were the case that would mean that he didn’t consider that he was an old man, that he was beyond child rearing stage, that basically he was infertile and it would seem to say well, he didn’t give it a moment’s thought, he just went on blindly trusting God. Wrong! The neat thing about this verse shows you that Abraham, being a man of faith DID stare the data in its face. He did not avoid the data, but that’s exactly the naïve view of faith that often you have, and you surely would get it by reading this in a sloppy way in verse 19.

So let’s correct it, let’s read through and see what’s happening here. “Being not weak in faith,” so obviously he’s strong in faith. Well, if he’s strong in faith what does he do? He does consider his own body now dead. He does consider that he is infertile, when he was about a hundred years old. So he is considering the data. And “the deadness of Sarah’s womb.” Not neither, he did do that. It was on his mind all the time, that he was infertile and his wife was infertile. So how could they have children. So verse 19 tells you Abraham wasn’t some dummy, didn’t know anything about physiology. He knew anatomy, he knew the problem, and he did consider it, but he was a man of faith. What data did he have in addition to the physiological data, to the anatomical information. He obviously had to have something, some content to his faith.

Romans 4:20-21 provides the other data, and the data of verse 20 was more real to Abraham than the anatomical date of verse 19. So it’s a priority of value which data takes precedents; data of the Word of God given to me by revelation, or data given to me by empirical perception. Now you say doesn’t this mean that he’s having the Word of God over against normal perception. No; here’s the point. Whenever you study something, whenever any of us do, suppose we’re scientists and again, using the old illustration, we study the law of gravity, and we can devise this beautiful equation, F=MA or F+=MG if you want the acceleration of gravity. And we say look it, I’ve got an equation, now I an describe a physical body. But really what have I got? I have only described God’s rule for a certain period in history. Do you think F=MA is going to hold when the new universe happens? Do you think F=MA held when God said, “Let there be light?” You see, those equations that are devised are only approximations of what God’s doing. They are guesses; they are second guesses. They may be very sophisticated but they are only ultimately guesses describing approximately what God is doing. All right, that’s the data.

Now let’s pretend in verse 19 we’re all physiologists, and we’ve studied Sarah’s ovum and we’ve concluded there’s no hope. Biochemically there’s no hope; the hormones of his woman’s body no longer function; it is incapable biochemically, of having a child. And we know this because in our scientific descriptions of the female body we know a woman in this kind of state can no longer produce. All right, there’s a description and we generalize the law; that physical data, we say boy, I trust that, I can see it, I can prove it, I can test it. Can we? That’s only an approximation of what happens most of the time.

But when we come to Romans 4:20, the other data is not an approximation type data. “He staggered not at the promise of God,” that’s no approximation because it’s verbal; God gives His word so God gave three words to Abraham, the three promises of the Abrahamic Covenant, that you’d have a seed, that you’d get the land, and that you’d be a world wide blessing. Now God spoke those and He spoke them doing His own translation. He didn’t give it to Abraham on cuneiform and said Abraham, here, take My glasses and use it and then after you’ve translated it loose your glasses. There was nothing like that. God spoke to Abraham in normal conversation and when he did so it came through accurately. So the data of verse 20 is not an approximation of what God’s doing. It’s a direct statement from headquarters as to what is happening; dogmatically and emphatically.

And therefore, when I face a tension between a declared verbal revelation from God in the Word over against what we will call a rule or a principle that I have gained by describing the universe, the first data, that is the verbal data, must take precedence over the non-verbal data. This data, of verse 20, is something that God verbalizes; this data, the rule type thing, the sun rises, the sun sets, gravity and so on, man has done all the verbalizing in bringing forth those rules. God has not. So those verbalizations don’t carry the authority of God’s verbalizations. And therefore Abraham recognized this, and it’s a very, very interesting principle in his life that he insisted that the Word of God type data takes precedence over the data of general revelation.

He was that kind of a man, and that’s what, in verse 20 he’s saying, “he doubted not,” not “staggered,” he wasn’t boozed up; this is doubting. “He doubted not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, the verb is passive. The action is happening to Abraham’s soul; Abraham’s soul is strengthening by considering verse 19 data in the light of verse 20 data; he’s not blind, he’s not naïve. He is open-minded to the whole big picture. Now two participles attach to the verb “was strengthened.” The first participle at the end of verse 20 is “giving glory to God.” The second participle in verse 21, “Being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” Now “giving glory to God” is one activity of Abraham. All the while the tension of rocking back and forth between 19 and 20, 20 being the promise, 19 being the empirical data, this see-saw struggle, it went on for 25 years incidentally, while the struggle was going on he was constantly being strengthened in his faith.

How was he being strengthened in his faith? Because two things were happening. One, he was giving glory to God. Now how does one give glory to God? That’s thanksgiving. That’s an active thanksgiving of God’s character and so while he was doing this, pitting the laws of physiology, the non-verbal data, verbalized by man, against God’s verbal data that you are going to have a child, rocking, see-sawing between the two, he gave “glory to God.” In other words, he accepted the superior validity of the Word of God. Then in verse 21 the follow-up to giving glory. Notice the word “fully.” He was “fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.” Well, there’s a description of the battle of the faithful Abraham. And it shows you something of how the man thought, gets into his head a little bit. And shows you that the male who believes is not the stupid male; it is the stupid male who doesn’t believe because the stupid autonomous male is one who has his rule down here, in this case physiology, the biochemistry of the woman’s ovum, of the man’s sperm, and he finds out on the basis of his rule that he himself has verbalized from a limited amount of observation he takes that and he elevates that to his supreme authority and sets it over against the Word of God. Abraham said you’re a fool, that’s now showing how great you are as a man, it’s just showing how stupid a man can be. That is not a sign of manhood; a sign of manhood is the he recognizes the authority that, the inherently superior authority of the verbalized Word of God.

Now let’s go to another description of this man’s character in Hebrews 11:8. What we’re doing here is showing some of the details of his application of the faith technique, and then after we do this we’re going to come to a certain conclusion about men. But we can’t come to that conclusion about men until we first watch what Abraham does, because all of it will fit together in a very nice little package when it’s all finally set against [can’t understand word].

Hebrews 11:8, the famous hero. “By faith Abraham, when he was called [to go] out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed;” he obeyed! Now notice in verse 8, he was “called.” Ah, this is one of the keys that we’re going to major on and finally conclude with tonight. There’s a theme that we begin to see here; there’s an ulterior motive why Abraham’s trusting God’s verbalized Word over the non-verbal laws of chemistry. And it’s tied up with this verb right here, he was “called,” he’s elected, he’s called by God to a destiny in history and he knows it. So Abraham “was called to go out into a place,” and this has a lot to do with how the man acts; he is aware of his call. He was “called to go to a place which he should receive” after a while, “and he obeyed;” notice the verb “obey.”

Nothing unmanly about obeying superior authority. And so Abraham is the model here, he obeys, “he went out, but he didn’t know where he went.” He didn’t know where ultimately he was going. Now that’s not the picture of a scatterbrain he knew where, technically, ultimately he was going because he knew that basically he wouldn’t be happy anywhere else than in the presence of God. So he had that question settled. But it was not altogether certain, all the intermediate steps. And you say well, that’s easy for Abraham but you see, I’ve got a job and I’ve got all these assets that I’ve got in stock and all the rest of it, you can’t expect me to operate my life on the basis of the faith technique like this. Oh yes, I can. What do you think Abraham was? Abraham had more wealth than you have; Abraham was a wealthy upper class businessman; Abraham had herds and herds were his stock, he didn’t register with the New York Stock exchange, he had it on four legs and it followed him all over the place. That was his stock, those were his assets.

Abraham was a wealthy man. Don’t think of poor lone Abraham humping along on his camel across the dunes of Saudi Arabia. That’s not the picture the Bible gives of Abraham. He is a massively wealthy businessman and takes his entire business and moves it with him. And think of what he had; to show you a little bit about his wealth, remember when Lot was captured. How’d he get Lot back? He had so many employees in his organization he could have a private army. That’s how large his business was. So let it never be said by any man that the faith technique doesn’t work for his business. The model man who started in history, as far as the reputation of the faith technique was a very wealthy businessman. And you’ll notice that in planning his business in verse 8 he did not know every detail he was going to operate on. He did not know the exact path but he did know the ultimate path.

Hebrews 11:9, “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles,” the principle of verse 9 is, unlike what we saw in Jeremiah 29, Abraham was never instructed by God to plant roots. Abraham was rootless; Abraham was a rootless but wealthy businessman. He kept his assets liquid and he was able to move, again not that liquidity is the end all of Christian business but in this case Abraham had very liquid assets because that was the calling he had. He dwelt in tabs, he had to move around.

But notice verse 10, here is what turns the man on. And every man basically will be unhappy unless to a degree he sees this point and does it. “For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Now boys, from the time they’re little boys with their toys, always like to build things. Ever notice a little kid with blocks, erector sets, always building something, bricks, and this is always part of it. In fact studies have been done watching female and male children build and work and there’s a distinct pattern that happens, and they’ve been able to empirically observe this in children, untaught by their environment. And so it shows you that the male child and the female child are programmed to operate differently, even the way they play. And one of the things that the boys always do is they like to build, put things together, take things apart.

Now that shows you something about the male soul, and it shows you something right here; Abraham wants to build and he wants to build something that will last forever. You think of the little boy that builds his blocks up and he gets this thing and he wants it to last forever until his big brother comes walking in and knocks it over flat and there’s a big riot and all the rest of it. Well, Abraham wants his blocks in an eternal castle built to last forever. Now this is expressed the way a man wants to look at life. He wants his life to count and he wants something that he can look at for eternity, not saying well look, I did it, because he can do it by grace, but nevertheless, he has to have some production. He wants something that’s going to last. And so therefore the eternal states is expressed in terms of the city.

Now contrast that with Cain. Cain was the one who went out in autonomous rebellion against God and said I’ll form my city and I’ll have security in my city, it’ll be my city where I have my security. Not so here; here it says, “Abraham looked for a city which had” security, he didn’t look for security as a city. It’s the reverse with Cain; in Cain he built a city to gain security. Abraham refuses to build until he can first be secure; then he’ll build his city. And so the city has foundation and the foundation is God Himself.

Then it says in Hebrews 11:11, describing some of his family life, “Through faith also with Sarah herself received strength to found a seed,” the business about “was delivered of a child when she was past age” isn’t in the best texts. So the point there is that it is a cooperative affair of faith with Sarah. Notice Sarah, although she drops the ball many times in believing, failing to believe, she gets her little measure back when the angel of God says you like to laugh? You’re going to name your child laughter; that’s Yitzhak. So Sarah was rebuked every time she called her son, that she had to remember her unbelieving laugh. But here we’re not looking at Sarah’s mistakes; here we’re looking at Sarah as supportive of her man’s role.

Abraham looked for the foundation, and “with Sarah,” with Sarah, and notice the passive, “he received strength to found a seed. Now that’s right in the context of the city which has foundations of verse 10. So what is Abraham’s city over against the city of Cain. Abraham’s city is a divine viewpoint counterculture of the believers; the believing society that will exist in history, that’s Abraham’s foundation and Abraham’s city. It ultimately becomes the New Jerusalem. But it starts because his wife is a cooperative with him. Remember we said the man’s job and his wife cannot be inherently competitive if we really believe God created both. God doesn’t create His creation to be at odds. So if it’s at odds there’s something wrong with what we’re doing. Well, here is a good example of something that is not at odds. Abraham wants to build a city but he must receive strength. Where does he get it? From his ‘ezer, Sarah. And where does his ‘ezer help her man? By believing. And so the key of their relationship, when it was successful, and it was not always successful, was because they had a common object for their faith. Repeat: A common object for their faith. So when guys date girls and they begin to see that so and so isn’t even a Christian, you are asking for trouble. Verse 11, “… because she judged him faithful who had promised. [12] There sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, as many as the stars of the sky” and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise. Isn’t it interesting, in verse 13 the city comes up again.

From Hebrews 11:13 down through 16, which is as far in this passage as we want to come tonight, we have the same theme of the man who wants to build his thing. “These all died in faith,” or “according to faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,” again it’s the picture of the essence of God, the promise is in the mind of God; it does not yet exist down inside history, it is only a promise that has come down in history but it’s not real yet, and that’s the state of affairs in verse 13. Abraham never got the solid line; he never saw it; “these all died, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off,” “were persuaded of them” is not in the best texts, it’s a good doctrine but it just doesn’t happen to be in the best texts, “embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. [14] For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country,” notice that, “a country.” [15] “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out they might have had opportunity to return,” that is if they didn’t firmly break mentally with the fact that they wanted a city without foundations and they were willing to turn their backs on their home, then if they were not willing to do it, the whole enterprise would have dissolved, possibly.

Verse 16 summarizes it: “But new they,” and that includes Abraham and Sarah, “they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared fro them a city.” So there is a very interesting thing, a very interesting state of affairs about Abraham, just from this New Testament look. Here you see the man doing exactly what Noah, the man, did. What did Noah and Abraham both do? They were radical rebels. Now I use the word “radical” in a different way than we’re used to using it. The word “radical” is often used in our political context for the left wing; that’s not how we’re using the word. The word “radical” in proper English has to do with the word “root,” and a radical rebel or a radical critic is looking at the foundation of things. When so and so makes a radical criticism it’s not some wild harebrained thing; that’s a poor use of the word radical. Radical means a profound, well-thought out criticism that gets to the presupposition.

Now Abraham was a radical rebel. He undermined the entire presuppositions of his generation, just as Noah did. He was a man sensitive to presuppositions. And in that sense he satisfied something in the male soul that gets screwed up when the male doesn’t do this right, because the men who don’t see presuppositions, and don’t take this radical stand against the world system, still have a need in their male souls to rebel. And so they begin to rebel over trivial things and there you get your male brat. Now the male brat and juvenile delinquent and rebel is a person who has within his soul this need to be found at the root and that’s part of his imagehood; he’s made to do that. But because he’s not amenable to the Word of God, that same ability, that is that radical ability to rebel gets misdirected into the trivial things and then you have the discrediting of the male character. And then you have the goody-goody humanist who comes along and says now the solution to the rebel male is to stop his rebellion. No, that’s not the solution; the solution to the rebellious male is to redirect his rebellion; you don’t eliminate the male’s rebelliousness, you redirect and channel it against human viewpoint. The male was built this way; apparently there’s something in the soul of man. Abraham and Noah were the two greatest rebels in history. The hippies wanted to create their little flower culture at the end of the 60s; they didn’t come up with anything. But Abraham and Noah did; they created a genuine culture; they were rebels. But they were rebels at the presupposition base. Now we want to come back into the Old Testament and having seen that, just that general observation of Abraham’s life, that like Noah he was a radical rebel, a spiritual pioneer.

In passing we want to understand that women did not form this function. Women are not cast in Scripture as the radical rebel; they are the followers, the helpers and the encouragers but they’re never cast in the role of the spiritual pioneer. That’s always… always left in Scripture to the male; never to the female. That’s his role before God.

Going back to the Old Testament we come to Genesis 17:9, the Abrahamic Covenant. The outward sign of the Abrahamic Covenant was circumcision. And now we get into the reason why circumcision? Why is that in the Scripture? Why is that tied to the covenant? Well, one thing it ought to tell you right away, that it plugs the male in a superior way to the covenant than to the female. The actual rite itself puts the male in direct contact with the covenant of God and the female cannot share this. And God is saying something to us in it and we’ll see how this them indeed permeates the Scriptures.

In Genesis 17:9, “And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep My covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generation. [10] This is My covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and thy seed after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised. [11] You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant between Me and you. [12] And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every male child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed. [13] He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. [14] And the uncircumcised male child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Now it couldn’t be any clearer that God demanded a physical sign in the male body of His covenant. We have substantiating text in Joshua 5; we have some more in Exodus 4, that God means this. Israel was not allowed to enjoy her land until the army of Joshua was circumcised. God insisted that this be literally carried out. Well, does this mean that somehow it’s a salvation by works? Not at all; it has nothing to do with salvation by works. What this has to do with is it shows that the male role, remember going back to Genesis, what did we say one of the male roles is? That the male has a familial sense of dominion. He rules through his family, the mini society that he builds, remember Noah? Who was on Noah’s ark? Noah’s own family. And who is it that forms the state of Israel? Abraham’s own family. And so it is that there’s a familial passage from father to son, and son to his sons, and so on in history.

The transmission of the covenant is through the male. God signs it, in other words, by the physical act of circumcision. What this is saying is that the male is the carrier of the covenant. It means that the male is the one who is responsible in each generation for propagating the results of that covenant into his society. He is, therefore, declared by the rite of circumcision to be the spiritual leader and the one with whom God makes His covenant. The circumcision, the act of circumcision, we would say identical to making contracts today, is the signing of the ink on the paper. The parties to the Abrahamic Covenant are the men, not the women.

All right, what does this covenant mean? First of all, it was given in, as you can see, verse 12, in infancy. Now they had circumcision; many of the Indian tribes of the world have had circumcision but it’s always adolescent, and the picture of circumcision in most primitive cultures is that when the boy becomes a man it becomes a rite of adolescence at puberty. But in Scripture that is emphatically crossed out and denied; circumcision is never a sign of manhood. Circumcision goes back to infancy in the Scripture and it’s obviously not a sign of manhood at all; the infant is made a party to the covenant ahead of its manhood, and shows, therefore, that his manhood is grounded first in God’s Word, not upon his ability. The rite of circumcision doesn’t come to the male after he has proven his malehood. The right of circumcision comes before and is a basis of his position as a man.

And so when we read verse 12 we can see many things. Another thing, as I’ve said in the third framework pamphlet it witnesses the existence of the sin nature from infancy forward, but in this series we’re just looking at it from the male point of view. And we’re simply saying that the infant… the infant administered circumcision in Scripture undercuts the pagan idea of (quote) “proving one’s manhood.”

We could say other things about it, obviously the circumcision is later on used for regeneration, but for tonight’s purposes let’s just keep it simple and literal to the text; it is to simply show that the men are the parties of the covenant, which brings us to the covenant itself.

Let’s look at Genesis 13:14; we all know the three promises but now what we want to see is how God taught Abraham the covenant in Abraham’s own man/male experience. And with this we begin to pull the pieces together. As we begin to deal with what made Abraham we begin to raise questions about that verb back in Hebrews about “calling.” Abraham knew he was “called” to go to another place. We’ve raised questions about this circumcision that says the male is the party to the covenant. All this goes back to what is the foundation of the man’s strength in history. There is a need for men to be tough; this is the only way they can lead, the only way you can survive is to have a toughness, a resiliency, but here’s the problem. On the male side of the fence, when toughness is developed and it’s a toughness born of autonomy, immediately there’s the corollary of harshness, a steel-like cold harshness that crawls into the male soul. And you’ve seen this in your successful businessman, the man who’s made his kingdom, there’s a certain cruelty to him. It’s not just business skill but there’s a certain cruelty; he just as soon roll over somebody in a business deal, it doesn’t make any difference, it’s my kingdom, I’m tough, that kind of attitude. What’s happened? He’s become a successful man, he’s become a successful leader, but with his toughness there’s a harshness.

Now in Scripture, the men like Abraham were considered tough but are never called harsh. Now what’s the secret; how do these men attain their toughness without at the same time getting harsh about it? They got it by simply basing it on election. God’s calling, there’s the basis for the male’s toughness but his non-harshness. And the reason they can be both is, as we will see here in these series of verses, that’s what we’re looking at, the key to the man’s character that begins to develop. Remember that passage in Hebrews, Abraham looked for a city that had eternal foundations. Now a man has to have his feet on something that he is sure of or he’ll always be indecisive. And indecisiveness breeds insecurity; insecurity finally breeds some sort of rebellion, and if a man can’t start with his feet on the ground he is lost. Every man needs that foundation and he is going to quest and thirst for it, he may go into this business, that business, he may try every gimmick under the sun and he may not even know that’s what he’s doing but secretly in his heart that’s what he wants. He wants that city that has foundations because if he can get his feet on the platform he can build what he wants to build, but he can’t build when every time he piles a brick on it it goes into the mud; he’s got to have a slab there. So Abraham, then, is carefully schooled in this concrete slab on which he can build; the slab is God’s call and His election.

So let’s look at how God teaches Abraham to be tough and resilient but not harsh. In Genesis 13:14 there has been some problems, but by and large Abraham has responded in faith. “And the LORD said unto Abram, after Lot was separated from him, Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place where you are north, and south and east and west, [15] For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.” Now let’s not get too theological about this. You know, one of the problems I think some of our seminary students are running into is they’re getting too theological too fast. Now that’s fine, to build in theology, but let’s be Biblicists first and just look at the normal, common, every day, what’s this talking about? Business deals, that’s what it’s talking about. In frank every day terms it’s talking about a guy in a real estate deal. And what has happened is that they had an X amount of land, Abraham graciously backed off and let Lot make the choice. So Lot said, like you can have two kids at the table and you cut two pieces of cake, one bigger than the other and you give it to the kid and you say now you pick first and then your brother will pick. Well, guess which one picks the big piece? The first one does, all the time. Well, Lot was that way; he picked the best piece.

Now look what happens to the male at this point. Without election he just got hung; he got screwed in that business deal and he could develop a bitterness and a harshness in his soul because of it. All right, what happens now? What does God do? Immediately, after Abraham apparently has been ripped off in this business deal with Lot, what does God do in verses 14-15 but assure him that the basis of his wealth and the basis of his business is grounded in God, who is the builder of the city. And this is how Abraham can be tough, can be persistent, and not get the bitter harshness that comes from the autonomous male who gets ripped off and says all right, next time I’m going to rip him off first. No God says, Abraham, I’ll take care of you; you get oriented to me and put the Word of God first and you’ll get your deal.

Let’s look at another incident in Abraham’s life. Genesis 14:17. Abraham has come back after he led an army out against the problem with his brother Lot. By the way, this is the first case we have in Scripture of how to deal with terrorism. Notice Abraham didn’t appeal to the United Nations. He didn’t commission George Gallop to find out how many people thought we ought to go after them. He gathered together an army and he went and he killed them and he solved the problem of terrorism. And he comes back and God blesses him for it. But he’s had a loss… he’s had a loss in this situation. But Abraham never lets it… he’s faithful in the middle of it, like with the Lot deal, with the land deal, Abraham was faithful and said all right, I’ll let him have first pick and he got ripped off, but God said okay, Abraham, just keep with Me. Same thing here. Abraham’s had, we’d say a misfortune.

What happens in verses 18-19, “Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; he was the priest of the Most High God,” El-Elyon, [19] And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, the owner of heaven and earth.” Now why is that in there? Because at this time, getting rid of all the theological abstractions, the basis of spiritual blessing is a piece of real estate. That’s the whole thing. Now there’s ultimate questions, yes, but concretely right in front of Abraham’s face, he’s a businessman and we’re talking real estate. And so God has Melchizedek assure him, I’m the real estate broker, now you just do business with Me and everything will be fine.

Let’s go to another incident; Genesis 15:18, God confirms the covenant to Abraham, and what happens; verse 18, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates,” he stakes out the claim to Abraham; He’s giving assurance to Abraham. Now you notice all the initiative so far in these texts we’ve looked at—did Abraham ask God to do this? No! Abraham did not initiate this; God initiated it. You see, Abraham was “called,” God was behind the man and Abraham knew God was behind the man and Abraham had that inner assurance that God was behind him.

Let’s go on a little bit more; Abraham in Genesis 17:15. We’ve talked real estate, now I just read you the section on circumcision, only one little problem and that is at this point Abraham doesn’t have anybody to circumcise. So again we come to the second promise of the Abrahamic Covenant, the promise of the seed. “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sari, thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. [16] And I will bless here, and give thee a son also of her, yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be hers,” and so on. [17] “And Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old?”

And then he responds in verse 18, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee!” Foolish, we’ll get to the details of this later on but it’s a foolish thing. [19] “And God said, Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son indeed,” a real son, not Ishmael, “and thou shall call his name Isaac: and I will establish My covenant with him,” and so on. And then in verse 22 is an interesting… it reads, “And he ceased talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.” See God talked to Abraham, assured Abraham.

Finally, in Genesis 22:15, it’s right after the incident where Abraham said all right, I trust God enough to be willing to sacrifice my son Isaac. After he does that, look what happens, verse 15, the malek Yahweh, “the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, [16] And said, By myself have I sworn, for because you have done this thing, and have not withheld thy son, thine only son, [17] That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven….” [18] “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” and he repeats the Abrahamic Covenant.

Now why do you suppose that God handles Abraham with kid gloves? Every time Abraham does something good God comes right in there and says that’s good, you’re doing good, now keep with Me and you’ll get your blessing. And of course, the blessing never ultimately came in his life, it’s on down in history. But God keeps cushioning this male who very tenuously takes the first step to faith and God says yeah, that’s right. And God initiates all these. Not one of these passages that I’ve showed you began with Abraham sought the Lord. None of them; God sought Abraham. Why did God seek Abraham? To cultivate an assurance in this man’s heart. God knows man because God made man and He knows that Abraham as a man must build but he has to have a foundation. And so God in all of these passages that I’ve just showed you is building his assurance of election, his assurance of his role in history, God doesn’t concentrate, even on the land, the seed and the other things. You notice that. He concentrates on… He mentions them but that’s not the center of attention of all these passages we’ve read. The center of all these passages is this election; that’s the point God wants in Abraham’s soul.

Now we can infer something in conclusion from this: that’s what all men need. They need to have their feet planted on the Word of God, and if their feet are not planted on the Word of God, either they’ll be passive, confused men or they’ll be the aggressive man that puts on the front and becomes harsh, but they won’t be the tough kind of man of Scripture; the tough man who is enabled to go through trial after trial after trial, keep on keeping on. Remember, we said one of those things about the man in the Scriptures, when I read you those prayers by men, and they all expressed frustration over their role as men, how hard it was to constantly be persistent, constantly have the burden of leadership on their shoulders, not able to take it off; nevertheless, why did they keep on? Because they had the sense of destiny, that’s why.

Now lest we think all this is Old Testament, let’s conclude by turning to some New Testament passages that show you the same principle operates in the New Testament. Two places we’re going to look at: one in Acts 10 and one in Acts 15. In Acts 10:33, when the gospel goes to this Gentile, Cornelius, notice what Cornelius does? He assembles his family; now who told Cornelius to do that? Apparently nobody directly, he just did it. So he assembled his servants together, his wife, his children. “… Now, therefore we are all here present before God, to hear [all things that are commanded thee of God],” what you have said. Well, how do we know that that’s his home, that’s his family? Because in the next chapter, in Acts 11:14 the word “house” is used. Peter recounts that Cornelius incident and here’s the man who wants to build; he wants to build his little miniature society, he’s looking for a foundation, and Peter’s just brought it to him and in verse 14, “Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou,” you male, “and all of your house shall be saved,” the house and the male. See, that’s exactly analogous to the same principle of the Old Testament. And that’s why the male and circumcision, the male was the party to the covenant because he is expected to rule his home under the covenant. You don’t go to the woman and have her sign the covenant because she’s not responsible to carry the covenant out. That’s why circumcision, the man is responsible for carrying the covenant out.

Let’s look at Acts 16, look at that famous verse that everyone quotes, Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” that’s only part of it, again, we’re dealing with a Gentile situation. If you’re going to hold that that principle we’ve just spoken of is all Jewish you’ve got a problem with both these passages because I picked out two with Gentiles in it and I picked out two this side of Pentecost to head off at the pass any of those objections. Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Now it’s not saying that because the jailor believes everybody automatically believes in his house; but it’s citing the principle that when God looks at that family unit He’s looking at the man. It’s like in the service, if somebody is screwing up out here and I’m an officer and I walk into the situation and say “who in hell is in charge here,” and you find whoever is the ranking man who’s supposed to be there and he says “yes sir, yes sir,” he comes out climbing out underneath a jeep or the tank or whatever it is but there’s somebody around here that’s supposed to be in charge. I don’t want to Airman last class, I want to talk to somebody who’s in charge.

All right, it’s the same thing when God comes. He wants to talk to whoever is in charge, and so He does, and every time He’s talking to someone in charge it’s the man… the man. In the Old Testament circumcision and here in the New Testament, Cornelius and the jailor, and their houses.

Father, we thank You…